Prince Harry says he hopes to “draw a line” under his past battles with the royal family and wants to repair his relationships with his father, King Charles III, and his estranged brother, Prince William.

The Duke of Sussex told GQ magazine he feels “optimistic” after he and his wife, Meghan, moved back to Britain in August with their two young children following six years living abroad.

“There is, you know, some battles that have been fought, necessarily so, but hopefully we can all draw a line under that,” Harry said in the interview, recorded in New York last month and released on Tuesday.

“With everything else that’s going on in the world, there’s aspects of the past that I’m sure all of us — me, my family, some of the British press — that we’d all like to leave that behind us and work for the greater good.”

Harry and Meghan stepped down as working royals in 2020, creating a major rift with the royal family. They have now enrolled their children, Prince Archie (seven) and Princess Lilibet (five), in a British school thought to be in the rural Cotswolds area where the family lives.

Harry confirmed they moved back for the “opportunities” it offered and said giving the children a taste of British schooling “meant a lot to me”.

He also wanted to “be back closer to my family and to be back on UK soil for longer than a few days or a week here or there”.

The prince said he wants things to “work out” with his father (77), who is receiving treatment for an undisclosed cancer, and with William, the heir to the British throne.

“The most important thing is to reconcile,” Harry said. “Scars stick around forever.”

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Last week, Harry and Meghan made their first joint public appearance since returning to Britain. Crowds of well-wishers greeted them.

“I’m hopeful,” the prince said. “I’m not naive … And I think a large part of this is about respect as well. Our position is really quite clear now. And hopefully we can get on with life.”

Harry said he spent years in therapy after his mother died in a Paris car crash in 1997 when he was just 12 years old.

He told GQ: “One of my biggest regrets is that last phone call I had with her,” explaining he just wanted to run off and play with his cousins.

“If I’d known it was the last call with her, how different that conversation would be,” Harry said. “The guilt and stuff that just really stuck with me. It was like heavy.”

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